Are there any better ways to copy a native dll to the bin folder?

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I have C# wrapper code that calls functions from a native (C++) dll. Currently, I can add a reference to the C# dll and have set the 'Copy Local' option to true. However the native dll, which is a dependency, cannot be added as a reference - so there is no 'Copy Local' option.

I have tried the following approaches

  1. Using a post-build events to copy the native dll from the Libs folder to the $(TargetFolder)

    copy "$(ProjectDir)Libs\NQuantLibc.dll" "$(TargetDir)NQuantLibc.dll"

  2. Included the native dll as an existing item in the project (Add -> Existing Item -> Include dll). This option allows me to use the 'Copy Local' option. The downside to this approach is that the dll always shows as a project item.

I also tried "Show All Files" which allowed me to see the Libs folder. I then include the NQuantLibc.dll file in the project which allowed me to set the 'Copy Local' option. However, this gave me a unexpected result. It created a Libs subfolder containing the dll within the bin folder (eg bin/debug/Libs/NQuantLibc.dll). Not ideal since the C# dll was not able to properly call the native dll since it was not there.

Both of the above options above work. Are there any better ways to copy a native dll to the bin folder such that the dependency will always be resolved? Alternatively, is there a different approach to this type of scenario?

post-build-event visual-studio build .net
6 Answers

Apparently I happened to have the same problem, but I did not want to do project file editing so much, so I ended up using following post-build script:

xcopy /y "$(ProjectDir)\lib_$(Platform)\*.dll" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)"

Just make sure you have a folder for every targeting platform needed, e.g.: lib_x86, lib_x64 and maybe lib_AnyCPU

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